Here, everything is dreaming

Moe’uhane

Island Dreaming

Dreaming is soul sleep

but even more it’s traveling.

You may fly across the water

in your body of wind

following the drumming of the waves

to spend the night with your dream lover.

Even goddesses do this.

Pele left her lava bed for three days

to make love with her dream prince.

Being a goddess, she could bring him home.

It’s harder for humans. Spend too long

with your dream spouse

without bringing him home

and you sicken like rotting silver.

You need to check who you’re sleeping with

because spirits take many forms.

If your prince is a water imp in disguise

you’ll go fish belly white and moist

on the side that rests next to him.

You must learn the vocabulary of dreams.

Never confuse a wild goatfish dream

that begins and ends in your belly

with a dream that comes true

because it’s the memory of a trip to the future.

Don’t mix up a wishing dream with revelation.

Be alert to the visions that open and shut

like lobster pots, quick and true,

on the edges of sleep and waking.

Use the dreams that are given to heal a family

and dreams that show you how to heal yourself.

In beauty and terror, as redbirds or lovely sharks,

as windflowers or razorbacks or honeycreepers,

gods and ancestors are talking, talking.

They show us life’s hidden springs.

They compose songs in us. They give

night names for babies that are coming.

They save our skins when they are worth saving.

Learn to discern when you can sweeten a dream

and soften the sharp future it portends

and when you have to swallow it straight up.

For a second opinion, listen to the birds

or to a bird-man who talks to the wind

or might sail a blossom canoe for you

over submarine tattoos in a gourd filled with water.

In the islands, everything has a body of wind.

In the morning garden, you notice the pandanus

has walked to the far side of the pond

where the fish dream open-eyed;

a palm swapped places with an avenging angel.

Even the land snail goes flying at night

and is the preferred scout of the fiercest goddess.

To become a native of these islands

you must grow double vision, reading signs

in the world and the world-behind-the-world

without going crazy. Persevere

and all your dramas will lead

to the Place of Leaping

where fresh water meets salt water

and you’ll drop your old body

and travel on, as bird or fish or zephyr

to the land tourists never see on the horizon.

Here, everything is dreaming.

On a white beach in the early light

a shark came out of the waters

and became a graceful silver woman

who claimed me as her mate,

there on the embracing sand.

She was so lovely I was not put off

by her hammerhead eyes.

I wonder what unexplainable love child

is swimming out there, in the deep.

Hawaii is a waking dream. I swam under the blue-white ghost of a rainbow there, in the midst of a pod of sea turtles. The tides of my blood move with the ocean, my breath flows with the wind, my body thrills to the sense of islands being born, in every moment, from fire beneath the water, and dying back. Early in March, on Pele's island, I will lead an adventure into deep dreaming and poetic consciousness, at play with the elemental powers. Still time to join if you feel the call; details here.